


Spond[Y]lodesis

by MeetTheTank



Series: Overdose Delusion [2]
Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bad end, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Robogore, brief mentions of OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 14:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17582252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeetTheTank/pseuds/MeetTheTank
Summary: Third time's the charm.





	Spond[Y]lodesis

**Author's Note:**

> Spinal Fusion (Spondylodesis) is surgery to relieve the pain caused by unstable vertebrae in the human spine (Spondylolisthesis). This surgery is a spinal fusion surgery: It is required in cases of severe instability of the spine.

Despite her insistence to the contrary, 2B is a creature of strong emotion. She forces them down each time they come bubbling back to the surface so that they don’t interfere with her work. However, more often than she’d like to admit, they break her down from the inside like a violent infection of the flesh. All logic, reasoning, even common sense is abandoned when these long ignored, irrational subroutines finally take their toll on her.

And it’s all his fault. Every single time 2B breaks it’s because she can’t bear to take his life and memories from him again. Every time they grow close it makes her job that much harder to do. Sometimes she fails. Sometimes she fails and clings to the dim hope that maybe this time, they can escape this damned cycle together.

Which is why she’s fleeing for her life with 9S’ gasping torso clutched under her remaining arm and her broken sword between her teeth.

The order had come a little less than two days ago. As usual, she steeled herself to see her mission through to the end hours in advance, but when the time came she failed. She couldn’t do it this time and she wasn’t sure why. The sequence of events was nearly identical to how it always goes, but she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. So they ran. They tried to put as much distance between them and whoever might have been sent after her to fix her mistakes. The first day was quiet, 9S had disabled their Pods’ ability to send messages to the bunker and jammed any location tracking abilities within the first hour on the run.

She expected another E Type to get sent after them. She did not expect 24E and 42E.

She should have anticipated it really. 9S and herself were high priority targets, of course, YoRha would send the cleanup crew after them. It was only a matter of time before two ruthless executioners such as them caught up. 2B had no idea they were attacking until 24E had 9S by his hair while 42E kept her busy with a flurry of strikes from her flaming swords. It would have been a simple fight. 2B was far stronger than either of them and far more experienced in unfair combat. However, they knew her weakness. Any time 9S would cry out in pain she would rush to his rescue only to be cut off and clipped by 42E.

Even with those odds, she still would have won, had 9S not decided to fight back. He hacked 24E while her guard was down, but something had gone wrong. 9S had failed, and 24E did not take this pointed attack on her few weak spots lightly. Her retribution was swift and exceedingly cruel. Just as before, 2B was helpless as 9S was slammed to the ground and cleaved in two with 24E’s great spade, a cruel and brutal tool nearly twice the size of its victim. It only took three strikes to reduce him to the state he’s in now, clinging to life with what remained of his internal systems falling out of him piece by piece.

2B retaliated, of course. Blinded with fury she tried to do as much damage to the executioners as she could. But she was careless, sloppy. She fought with the ferocity of a feral animal, but without the cunning and technique of a YorHa android. It cost her her right arm, along with quarts of coolant that seeped through the various wounds she suffered. Perhaps if she had run immediately, 9S would have a better chance...

He’s a lost cause, 2B knows that. She has limited knowledge of field treatments, she’s down an arm, and their Pods were the first things that the two executioners destroyed. She should have fought to her death back there, but instead, she chose to run. There’s a voice in the back of her head that chastises her for dooming them both, not that she listens to it. So long as there’s a sliver of hope that they can make it out, she’ll use all her remaining strength to see it through.

…

...But is it worth it to keep 9S suffering like this?

He sputters and gasps in her arm, the only signs she gets that what’s left of his body still clings to life. They’re weak sounds that make him shiver with effort, more of his internal structure falling out of place as he does. A quick glance behind them confirms 2B’s fear. A trail of coolant, broken parts and bits of flesh leads back the way they came. It wouldn’t be long before the cleanup crew would be on them. If she wasn’t missing an arm she might be able to do more to cover their tracks, but all she can do is put as much distance as she can between them.

No, she can’t give up. Not when she’s gotten this far. She risks decommissioning at this point, for both of them. Giving up now means certain death. Pressing on, another death sentence, also means spitting in the face of the Commander and the wretched cycle she forced her and 9S into.

But that spite could only carry her so far. Her body feels heavy despite losing a limb, each step is a fight against her joints locking place. The errors that flash across her vision tell her she’s lost more fluids than she thought. They need to rest, she needs to try to repair 9S at least a little or he’ll die before they can escape the forest zone. But the growing trail of android viscera leads their pursuers right to them…

“Ri….ver…” 9S sputters. He grabs at 2B’s hand that holds what remains of his body, his fingers leaving bloody streaks across her gloves.

With blood caking one of her eyes shut, it’s difficult for 2B to see the shallow stream winding deeper into the forest. But even in his delirium, 9S is right. If she wades through the river for a mile or so, it should be enough to throw the executioners off their trail for a little while. It might give her some time to think of a more long term solution.

Setting one foot in the water nearly locks up her foot. The stream is only deep enough to reach just underneath her knees, but it’s far colder than she expected. She stumbles on the uneven rocks, nearly dropping 9s into the stream. The cold cuts right through her boots and drops her body temperature a few degrees. She forces herself to break into a lopsided jog, as staying in the icy water while missing this much fluid would bring her core temperature down to dangerous levels. If she were to become incapacitated, 9S would die for sure.

2B staggers through the stream, occasionally forcing out questions to 9S to make sure he’s still alive. Just as she suspected, anything that fell out of him simply floated downstream. All she has to do now is bear the icy waters for a little longer and their trail would go cold. It seems simple enough, but 9S’ groans and sputters grow weaker by the minute. Even the rough jostling of 2B stumbling over a loose rock only gets a pitiful gasp from him. She tightens her grip on him and picks up the pace.

She forgets how long she’s been running for when she sees the mouth of a cave. Hidden behind a grove of ancient trees, she nearly misses it. That fact alone makes it the perfect place for them to stop and attempt repairs. The moment 2B leaves the stream, however, 9S groans as loud as he can. He must mean for her to continue through the water, but his plea falls on deaf ears. Not like he can put up much protest anyway.

The forest floor is more treacherous than the streambed. 2B falls to the ground when her foot catches on a root, and all 9S can do is bare his teeth in a silent scream. His exposed spine seems to writhe on the ground and a pale blue fluid leaks from severed tubing. 2B wraps her arm around his shoulders and tries to lift him up again, but it’s all she can do to find the strength to drag him into the cave. His body shudders as some large component falls from his wound. 2B can’t make out what it even is, maybe his material containment. She kicks it ahead of her, just in case.

2B’s vision switches to accommodate the low light of the cave. The colorless view of her surroundings is oddly comforting. It’s simple, much less information for her to process. She can feel her mind clearing if only a bit.

Her arm gives out finally and 9S drops to the ground. Fluid pools underneath his torn body. The remains of his abdominal muscles twitching and writhing as his body tries to move his missing legs. He tries to force his arms to pull his pathetic body up, but all that it accomplishes is scraping his face against the stone earth. His visor is dragged down, snagged by a rock, revealing eyes darkened by blown pupils that don’t focus on anything. They roll back and flutter shut as tremors make his broken body shiver and convulse. His mouth hangs open, mouthing words or even just sounds, but nothing escapes his pale lips.

The sight is torturous to 2B, and one she’s seen far too many times, though under different circumstances. She wants to simply stop and cry, cry for the freedom ripped from their grasp in the most brutal of ways. Cry for 9S, for even if he survives he’ll be a shell of his former self. Cry, because this is all her fault. All because of her cowardice and recklessness and failure to make it simple.

But she can’t. Not now. Not when 9S needs her to ease his pain.

She forces her pain receptors to shut down. Unfortunately with that comes the inability to feel temperatures...or really anything for that matter. Flexing her hand, she gets a quick idea of her remaining range of movement. At least her arm, up to her shoulder, can move without impediment. With only one, it’ll be more difficult to do 9S’ repairs. No...It’s going to be impossible to do the delicate work is required for his body to function a fraction in the way it used to. The most she’ll be able to do is...try to put what she can back in.

Taking a deep breath, 2B rolls 9S onto his stomach. His head lolls to the side and instantly 2B begins to panic. She reads for a black box signal and sighs when she detects the faint signal emanating from his chest. He must have entered a hibernation state while she was distracted. She has to keep him from completely shutting down. Luckily the sensation of severing the frayed wires and containing everything would force him to stay awake.

Unluckily, he would have to feel everything.

The first thing she does is peel off his jacket and what was left of his shorts. The coat comes off easily but the shorts are tangled in synthetic flesh and muscle and stuck to his skin with rapidly drying coolant. They pull ruined cords of abdominal muscle with them. His body shudders awake with a low groan. 2B catches a glimpse of his eyes before they snap shut in a twisted grimace.

2B mutters an apology as she sets the ruined clothes to the side. With a limited supply of staunching gel, she can’t simply coat his whole lower body in it and leave it at that. She has a few tools, a few packets of gel, one arm, and no pod. The most she can do is stuff what she can back in, sever the frayed wires and circuits, and use what little gel she has to seal the wound before using his clothes as a makeshift bandage.

9S lets out a pained gasp as 2B grabs a mess of frayed wires and lines them up as gently as she can. She holds them down under her leg, then severs them with her sword in a clean cut. Before they scatter too much, she tosses the sword to her side and snatches the wires up again. An attempt is made to tie them off, but all she can do is jumble them together in her hand. Sparks fly from where the ends cross each other, making 9S twitch and groan despite 2B not being able to feel a thing. She repeats the process again with another batch of wires, intentionally making the wires spark to keep 9S awake from time to time.

She grabs a bundle of muscle cords in her fist. He twists and writhes as she forces the ruined systems back into his body one by one. It takes far longer than she anticipates, every so often she has to hold his arms down as he claws at her hands that rummage around inside him. He accidentally tears away pieces of loose skin that get caught under his cracked fingernails.

There are times where she debates on deactivating her aural sensors. Hearing 9S pitifully fail to cry out in pain, only letting out small whimpers and nonsensical phonetic noises, it’s unbearable. It chips away at her resolve to press on, to keep trying to save him. It’d be so much easier to just...wrap her hand around his neck and...He wouldn’t even feel anything….

She wraps her hand around a malleable cooling tube that had slid out of him while she was focusing on his displaced muscles. A low growl of frustration echoes through the cave as another tube falls out of place, and third shortly after she replaces the last. Gritting her teeth, she takes the growing bundle of coolant tubes in her fist and shoves them as far into his abdominal cavity as her arm will allow. 9S gags from the sensation, a slow trickle of blood falling from his mouth. His frantic movements now reduced to involuntary twitching and spasms.

Now soaked in coolant fluid, 2B’s arm shivers despite her not being able to feel the biting cold. The trembling makes it difficult to handle the few packets of staunching gel but she manages to tear them open with her teeth and a bit of determination. Since she can’t close up 9S’ wound entirely with the meager handful of packets she has, instead she uses the sick yellow gel to hold everything in place while she’s preoccupied with making a bandage of discarded clothes.

The last thing she has to do before dealing with that problem is tending to his ruined spine. Her first instinct is to cut it down so it doesn’t dangle outside of his body, but the pain would force him into a shutdown state and put him at a greater risk of death. Curling it up could work, but too many vertebrae are shattered with the synthetic neurons exposed and fraying. Forcing it back inside his body at that kind of unnatural angle would have those delicate systems come into contact with the other stripped wires and ruined muscle cords, creating an agonizing feedback loop. But she can’t just leave it sitting in the dirt…

9S’ glassy eyes give her an idea. She takes both his bloodied visor and her own and ties them together, then wraps the fabric around the fractured end of his spinal column. It’s sloppy and it’s barely tied together, but the delicate inner workings are no longer sitting in mud. With the end of this hacked attempt of first aid in sight, the determinant strength she had built up fades till she can barely lift 9S’ ruined coat. The intent is to wrap the coat around his body, but all she manages to do is lay it over top of his stomach.

Suddenly, it becomes difficult for 2B to hold herself up. She collapses to the ground parallel to 9S’ body, taking deep breaths of stagnant cave air. An alarm blares in her head warning her of coolant loss, motor function impairments, overheating...but it doesn’t matter to her. All of these issues pale in comparison to what 9S is feeling. All of her available resources have to go into  
fixing him as much as she can, she can’t let him down….

….

But she can shut her eyes for a moment.

….

2B snaps awake. Her internal clock tells her she’s been in preservation mode for several hours. Several hours where 9S was alone. She moves to stand up but something catches her arm. Glancing down she sees his hands clasped around her own, holding it close to his chest. If she only looks at his face, she might have thought he was peacefully sleeping back at the Resistance camp. His weak breaths ghost across her arm, giving her silent reassurance that he’s still alive.

She pulls her arm from his grasp to cup his cheek in her palm. He leans into her touch, savoring the warmth on his frigid body. Well...she assumes he’s cold, her tactile sensors are still deactivated.

9S opens his eyes a little. His blue eyes, usually full of life and spark, are dull. They hazily attempt to focus on 2B’s face, but only stare beyond her.

“Tw….B…” He chokes, a bit of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, “Are you...Okay?”

2B is dumbfounded. Here he is, lying on a cave floor in a pool of his own blood, missing half of his body, and he’s asking if she is okay.

“...Been better.” She responds, “You?”

“C-...Hurts...Stiff.”

“Here…” She retrieves a batch of E-drug from her inventory, “For the pain…”

The stimulant takes effect immediately, 9S’ pupils widen and darken his eyes and his jaw goes slack. Phonetic nonsense is all that can come out of his mouth, along with some saliva, as the

E-drug courses through his systems.

2B strokes his face as he drifts off into a drug-induced stupor and she stares out to the forest beyond the cave’s mouth. He’s no longer in pain but...how long will it last? She doesn’t have an endless supply of E-drug or any other supplies. The drug will wear off, the staunching gel will crack and dissolve. It’s only a matter of time before they either break down completely, or the executioners find them.

What was her plan? What did she really think was going to happen? They would escape the executioners and then what? Eventually, something would break down, and they would have no way to fix it, and they’d end up in roughly the same position they’re in now.

...She should have just finished her job. All she had to do was plunge her sword through his neck, severing his spine at an irreparable point. He wouldn’t even feel anything, and then she’d be right back at the beginning with him. Instead, she was selfish, she’s making him suffer for some half baked dream of freedom. All this in addition to the threat of permanent decommissioning. Either she gets shelved and 9S gets paired off with another E-type, or they both never see the light of the sun again.

If she had known things would turn out like this…

Maybe if she-... No that’s too dangerous. It’s a gamble but…

It’s the only option she has.

“Nines…” 2B mutters, forcing herself to stand.

His eyes snap open at his nickname, “Wh-...”

“I need to see if I can find some materials outside.”

Through the haze of the E-drugs, 9S can hear the icy determination in her voice but can’t piece together what it means. All he knows is that it makes him feel...hollow? He isn’t sure, but he knows he doesn’t like it.

“Ok-...ay.” he slurs.

He groans as he tries to use his head to push himself up. 2B lays him back down on his back as gently as she can, her hand lingering on his face just a moment too long.

Something soft and slightly wet touches his forehead, but it’s gone so quickly that he barely registers it was there in the first place. His eyes fluttered open to see 2B limping towards the mouth of the cave. Her lips move, but no sound reaches him.

She disappears from sight before he can muster the strength to say goodbye.

He isn’t sure how much time passes, his timekeeping functions were deemed inconsequential and shut down. Things stop hurting, however, he’s lucid enough to recognize that. Sometimes tremors wrack through his body and jolt him back to consciousness. Sometimes he stares at the little beetle scuttling across the cave wall until he drifts back into unconsciousness.

9S cycles through reawakening and drifting off five times. The sixth time a surge of energy rushes through him, bringing him to agonizing lucidity. He grits his teeth together as waves of pain take over his every thought. His muscles spasm with phantom pains, but the most pressing thing is the aching thirst that burns in the back of his throat.

It makes sense, he supposes. He’s lost about….a lot, of coolant. The fastest way to lower his internal temperature would be to ingest as much cold water as he could, or even just sit in it. A fuzzy image of 2B carrying him through a river comes to mind, and he can hear the faint running of water nearby.

Using what strength he can manage, he flings his arm across his chest again and again until the momentum flips him over onto his stomach. Something cracks inside of him, but he feels no new pains. It must be the old staunching gel beginning to decay. He suppresses a gag, the sensation of flipping over makes his stomach roil. As he reaches one arm forward and digs his blunted fingers into the rock his loosening insides shift around. A sick feeling that does get him to dry heave into the dirt.

The taste of acid in his mouth only amplifies his thirst and renews his determination to just get a goddamn sip of water. 9S drags his useless body a few inches before his arm gives out. A blast of chill air stings his open wound as his coat falls away. It barely even phases him, 2B will put it back on him later anyway.

9S’ struggle for purchase on the slick cave floor, but with sheer willpower and the discomfort of thirst he manages to find a rhythm. Between pulling himself along the ground and flexing the ruins of his abdominal muscles, he writhes towards the sound of water like a dying snake.  
Rocks dig and tear into his skin, but he doesn’t care. The sunlight blinds him, overloading his visual sensors to the point of shutdown. But he doesn’t care. The staunching gel cracks and all of 2B’s hard work to put him back together comes spilling out, leaving a trail of viscera behind him.

But he doesn’t care.

He’s so...thirsty.

The rock changes to cool blades of grass and rotting piles of leaves. It’s more difficult to pull, but sharp rocks no longer shred his belly. He considers lying there for a moment just to revel in the relief, but the quiet babbling of running water is stronger than ever. It sounds so close it’s like he could almost reach out and-...

9S recoils at the sudden cold wetness that envelops his fingers. Shock turns to an exhausted elation as he realizes he found it. He did it, he really did it!

With a grunt, he heaves his body into the water barely deep enough to cover his hand. He submerges what he can of his face and drinks deeply, till his lungs cry for air. Again and again,  
9S nearly drowns himself in the stream, taking in more water than he thought he could hold. His body temperature drops degree by degree until the agony of overheating fades, and the phantom pains are numbed away. All he can feel is the cool water lapping at his broken body...and the faint vibrations of encroaching footsteps.

A shadow engulfs the light that cripples his vision, accompanied by heavy boots coming to a halt near his face.

He turns his head to the side, letting part of his face rest in the water, “...Tw-”

The last thing he sees is sunlight glinting off a blade.

 

* * *

 

“It’s a shame,” 42E says with a low sigh, “Such a waste.”

24E regards her partner with a quiet grunt, as she cleans the scanner’s blood from her spade.

“...What should we tell the Commander, 24E?”

She shrugs her heavy shoulders, “Same thing we normally do, I s’pose.”

“Yeah,” 42E reaches down to close the eyes of the scanner’s severed head, “She did her job in the end. Came to us willingly, told us where he was.”

24E nods, “Command don’t have to know the details.”

“We can say the damage to us came from some wild machines. It’ll make it easier for 2E later. Not that she’ll remember it.”

“How many times is this now?” 24E asks as she begins to dig just inside the cave.

“Attempted desertions or dead scanners?”

“Former.”

42E reclines against a tree as her partner works. She toys with the useless feather in her hat in thought, “Hm...Three I believe. Only the second one you and I have had to deal with, though.”

“You think three out of twenty-odd times is enough?”

42E shakes her head, “No, she’s too good at most everything else. They’ll just roll out another 2E and try something else.”

“What about him?” 24E gestures her muddy weapon at the scanner’s corpse.

“Same thing. Poor guy...You didn’t have to do that to him, you know.”

She sighs, “Yeah, I know. Could’a just killed him right there. I got mad.”

“I see that.”

“You ever been hacked before? It’s not fun, havin’ someone else rootin’ around your head to see which pieces they can turn off.”

“Can’t say I have. Just...Don’t be so cruel next time. We might be executioners, but we don’t have to be monsters.”

“That’s startin’ to sound like sympathy, 42E.”

She glares up at her partner, “Say’s the one digging a grave for the two of them.”

24E chuckles to herself, “I s’pose you’re right. YorHa don’t need to mourn, after all.”

“Emotions are prohibited,” 42E says in her best impression of her fallen friend.

“That they are. Now, make yourself useful and see if there are any of those glowin’ flowers around here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact edit: there is a picture I came across that inspired this fic but I recently found out that it’s actually part of a hentai comic so I’m not posting that here.


End file.
